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July 23, 2026
“The Scoreboard Did Not Decide the Match”
40 Days of Football exposed everything we get wrong in business.
Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I am about football. For the past 40 days, like billions of people around the world, I watched one of the most unpredictable World Cups of my lifetime. The expansion from 32 teams to 48 brought more countries, more styles, more underdogs and far more surprises. Almost every day, the tournament reminded us that reputation means very little once the whistle blows.
And now I am already looking forward to 2030. The next World Cup will be hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco, and it will mark the centenary of the tournament. To honour the first World Cup held in Uruguay in 1930, one centenary match will also be played in each of Uruguay, Argentina and Paraguay. Six countries, three continents and 100 years of football history. It will be unlike anything we have seen before.
But before we move on to the next one, I keep thinking about what these past 40 days taught us, not only about football, but about business and, more specifically, about real estate.
On July 4, I wrote a post after the Cape Verde-Argentina match titled "Sometimes the Scoreboard Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story." I wasn’t really writing about football. I was writing about business. Football simply happened to be the best classroom.
Now that the World Cup has ended, I think the tournament completed the lesson for all of us. Cape Verde showed the world that belief, discipline and commitment can compete with talent. England versus Argentina reminded us how quickly success can disappear when you stop doing what created it. Then, in the final, Spain delivered the biggest leadership lesson of the entire tournament.
Argentina deserved to be in the final. They earned it. They showed resilience throughout the tournament, fought back when challenged and found ways to win difficult matches. Great teams do not reach a World Cup final by accident. But somewhere between beating England and stepping onto the field against Spain, something changed. It looked as though the idea that they were unbeatable had entered their heads, and that Messi, one of the greatest players the world has ever seen, could somehow carry them to another victory.
But Messi is still only one of eleven players, one extraordinary individual cannot replace teamwork, structure, accountability and discipline. Championships are not won simply because one person is brilliant. They are won when eleven people understand their responsibilities, trust one another and commit to the same system for the full 90 minutes.
Watching the final, I could not help but think about how often the same thing happens in real estate. An agent has a record-breaking spring market. Listings are selling. Buyers are calling. Referrals are coming in. Suddenly, the agent decides they are too busy to prospect. The calls that created the pipeline stop. Training becomes optional because they believe they have already figured it out. They stop asking questions because they think they have all the answers.
Then the market shifts and the excuses begin. The market is terrible. Interest rates are too high. Nobody is buying. The brokerage is not doing enough. The leads are no good. Everyone and everything becomes responsible except the person looking back from the mirror.
The question I always ask is very simple: did the market change first, or did your habits change first?
The best agents I have worked with over the past three decades never stop doing the fundamentals. When business is strong, they prospect. When business slows down, they prospect even more. They continue to learn, invest in coaching and sharpen their skills. They understand something most salespeople never do; consistency beats intensity.
The England-Argentina match gave us another version of the same lesson. England took the lead and then began protecting what they already had instead of continuing to create what could come next. We see that every day in our industry. An agent gets one listing and takes their foot off the accelerator. They close one deal and stop following up. They have one strong quarter and assume the next quarter will take care of itself. But the moment you stop building tomorrow, you start living off yesterday.
Argentina kept attacking England and earned its place in the final. But against Spain, the very confidence that had carried Argentina forward appeared to become overconfidence. Spain did not become emotional. They did not abandon their structure or try to force the game. They stayed patient, trusted their system and remained disciplined from the opening whistle to the last.
That is leadership. Confidence is an incredible asset, but unchecked confidence quietly becomes complacency. The day you believe your reputation will win the next listing is the day another agent starts taking your market share. The day you think one great quarter guarantees another is the day your pipeline begins to shrink. The day you stop learning because you think you have mastered the business is the day someone else starts passing you.
I often hear agents say, "I’m the top producer in my office." That is wonderful. But if your entire business depends on you, then you do not really have a business. You have a very demanding job. The most successful REALTORS® I have met do not rely only on motivation or personal talent. They build systems. They develop people. They delegate. They invest in coaching. They continue learning long after they become successful because they understand that success has a way of making people comfortable, and comfort is where growth goes to die.
Looking back, this World Cup was never only about football. It was about leadership. Cape Verde taught us that belief can compete with talent. England taught us that protecting success is not a strategy for creating more success. Spain reminded us that discipline will eventually outperform talent when talent Argentina stops respecting the process that made them successful.
I have believed this for most of my career: the scoreboard never tells the whole story. The real story is written every morning when you decide whether to make one more call, improve one more skill, follow up with one more client or convince yourself that yesterday’s success is not enough.
“In real estate, as in football, yesterday’s victory does not guarantee today’s result. Your habits do. Your discipline does. And ultimately, your response will.”
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
March 2 , 2026
“The New Real Estate War: Data, Margins, and Control — Who Truly Owns the Future of Real Estate?”
The first two months of 2026 have been filled with conventions and conferences from BUZZ to Inman, and now as I write this from R4 and I’m genuinely glad I made the time to attend all of them. Not because of the size of the stages or the names on the panels, but because the message across every room landed with unusual clarity. In a business that moves as fast as ours, stepping out of the day-to-day is not a luxury, it’s a requirement. This is where you pressure-test your thinking, see around corners, and understand not just what is happening, but why it’s happening. The people who stay close to these rooms tend to lead the change. The ones who don’t eventually react to it.
I went in expecting the usual mix of big headlines and bigger promises. And to be fair, the headlines delivered, market shifts, mergers, and the new force everyone is talking about, AI. But the real story wasn’t on the surface. It was underneath. The deeper conversation wasn’t about any of those things in isolation. It was about market share power, data, margin control, and ultimately who owns the economics of our industry going forward.
The largest headline in 2026, of course, has been the merger between Compass and Anywhere Real Estate. At roughly 340,000 agents combined, nearly one-fifth of the U.S. agent population, it represents one of the most significant consolidation events we’ve seen. But what stood out wasn’t the size. It was the intent. This wasn’t about ego or theatrics. It was about public-market pressure and narrative control. Public companies must demonstrate growth, stability, or a credible long-term innovation story. Consolidation becomes one way to signal strength. The real takeaway, however, is simple: scale is not the strategy, execution is. Poorly executed scale only creates larger inefficiencies. Well-executed platforms win regardless of size because they convert structure into results.
As the conversations moved deeper, one theme showed up consistently across panels and private discussions, data and more specifically, listings. In real estate, data is not abstract. It is inventory. A listing represents consumer intent, market signal, leverage, and lead origination. Whoever controls listings controls economic power. Once you see it through that lens, the tension between brokerages and portals is no longer emotional, it’s structural.
Zillow built the modern data monetization model years ago successfully in US. Brokerages create the inventory, consumers search on the portal, and agents pay 30–35 percent referral fees to access demand tied to their own listings. Many agents sit in the middle of that model, appreciating the leads while questioning the economics. That tension is now evolving into a much larger strategic question; should we continue outsourcing the monetization of the very asset we create? Listings are not just marketing, they are the product. And when you look at moves like RBC and REALTOR.ca forming strategic partnerships, it’s clear the landscape is shifting. We should expect more platforms, more options for consumers, and more competition around MLS portals and how data is distributed and monetized.
One of the strongest signals from Inman was that the industry may actually be moving “backward” but in the most intelligent way possible. Back toward ownership. Back toward control of listings, distribution, and engagement. We are moving from a lead-generation economy to a listing lifetime-value economy. Leads are commodities. Relationships are assets. That shift changes how we think about everything.
It also reinforces something that has always been true but is now becoming critical again:, the agents who will stay ahead are the ones who understand the power of “list to last.” Control the listing, control the relationship, control the data and you control your future. That philosophy isn’t outdated; it’s foundational. In a world where leads can be bought, duplicated, and resold, the only defensible position is owning the relationship from start to finish. The agents who master that will not just navigate this market, they will lead it.
AI was a major part of the conversation as expected, but the real insight wasn’t about content or automation. It was about execution. One phrase that stayed with me was the “Infinite Software Crisis.” We are automating more, producing more, and generating more output than ever before, yet many organizations are not translating that into profitability. That’s the gap. This is not an AI crisis, it’s an execution crisis.
AI can generate emails, summarize calls, and trigger workflows, but without redesigning how work flows and how engagement converts into revenue, it simply creates noise. Features are everywhere. Outcomes are not. And that’s where the separation will happen. The platforms and agents that win will be the ones who turn engagement into measurable results.
The highest-return opportunity in AI is not content generation, it’s engagement discipline. The real question is no longer “How many leads did we buy?” It’s “How deeply did we engage the people we already have?” Most databases are underworked. Most opportunities are sitting idle. AI, when applied correctly, removes friction and amplifies the agent’s ability to connect, follow up, and convert. It doesn’t replace the agent, it exposes where discipline is missing.
At the same time, consolidation is no longer cyclical, it’s structural. Capital is repositioning across brokerage, mortgage, and technology. Agent count, once a badge of honor, is losing relevance. The real indicators of value are market share of listings, agent productivity, margin discipline, and ownership of data. The middle of the market, firms without strong listing market share or agents producing at a high level is under the most pressure. You either move up into platform leverage, move down into localized dominance, or become a customer of someone else’s system.
Underlying all of this, market shifts, mergers, AI, and data strategy was one consistent theme, trust. Transparency, seller choice, competition, and professionalism remain the foundation of this business. If trust weakens, the system weakens. If we protect trust while improving efficiency, the industry becomes stronger, more professional, and more sustainable.
I am optimistic, not because the industry is easy, but because it is clear. This industry is not collapsing; it is sorting. Agent count will decline. Brokerages will consolidate. AI will remove administrative drag. And human advisory value will increase. The winners will be those who protect their data, control their engagement, defend their margins and elevate their professionalism through education and training.
My advice is simple. Focus on outcomes over features. Engagement over volume. Discipline over hype. Agent and client value above everything else. As we move through 2026, the real work is in application—how we think about data ownership, particularly listings, how we position monetization, and how we use AI to drive measurable engagement and results.
Because at the end of the day, this industry is not being disrupted by outsiders alone. It is being reorganized by market share, consumers confidence, capital, data, and execution. And in a world full of noise, clarity and the discipline to act on it will decide who wins next.
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
May 22 , 2026
“The Rescue That Wasnt”
Why the Real–REMAX, Compass–Anywhere, and eXp–NextHome deals aren’t bailouts. They’re confessions
The story being marketed is simple and wrong. Real “saved” REMAX® from its debt. Compass “rescued” Anywhere from declining margins. eXp “absorbed” NextHome’s franchisees who couldn’t make it alone. It’s a tidy narrative, and it’s nonsense.
Strip away the press releases and the social media pretender experts or as we politely call them, influencers and a different picture emerges. In each of these deals, the buyer is acquiring the exact thing it spent the last decade telling the industry was obsolete. Real, with no franchise income and no broker-operator layer, bought 50 years of both. Compass, after a decade of calling itself a technology company, bought six legacy franchise brands. eXp, after a decade of arguing the cloud model made offices irrelevant, bought 500 franchisees and changed its ticker to AGNT. These aren’t rescues. They’re confessions paid for in cash, stock, and a billion dollars of new debt.
Nobody got saved here. Two halves of a broken industry just realized they couldn’t survive without borrowing each other’s missing pieces.
Look at what each side is actually buying. Real has $2 billion in revenue that flows through its books as agent commission pass-through. Strip that pass-through away and the company keeps about nine cents on every dollar. Last quarter it lost money on a GAAP basis. It has no international footprint of any consequence. And critically, it has no recurring broker-operator layer income, its entire revenue stream depends heavily on the same economic cycles that just punished the rest of us.
REMAX®, on the other hand, is a 50-year-old global brand. 149,000 agents across 110 countries. Master franchise structures throwing off recurring fees. Independently owned offices with broker-owners who actually train, recruit, and develop talent at the local level for actual profit, not for rev share, actually building a saleable business. That isn’t a company being rescued. That’s a company being acquired for the assets the buyer never bothered to build or tried to build through rev share but wasn’t willing to take the 50-year journey to do it.
Compass spent ten years calling itself a technology brokerage that also respected that brick-and-mortar matters. The verdict from public markets was less generous, it traded for years like a real estate brokerage with an expensive software bill. So, Compass bought Anywhere, the parent company of Coldwell Banker, Century 21, Sotheby’s, Better Homes and Gardens, and ERA. Six legacy brands. Tens of thousands of independently owned franchisees. The exact infrastructure Compass’s original pitch said was obsolete.
eXp bought NextHome for the franchisees. And then changed its ticker to AGNT. After a decade of telling the industry that cloud beats office, that revenue share beats franchise, and that local operators were a tax on agent production, eXp paid real money to buy 500-plus franchisees and renamed itself after the very thing it spent ten years saying was optional. The ticker change is the confession the press release wouldn’t write.
Yes, REMAX® is carrying $436 million in debt. Yes, anywhere has been managing its own leverage. Yes, balance sheets matter. But framing these deals primarily as debt-relief operations reveals more about the writer’s lack of financial education than it does about the deal.
REMAX® wasn’t bought because it had debt. REMAX® had debt because it had been a real, cash-generating business for long enough to lever itself in the first place. You don’t get to $436 million of term debt by being a fragile company. You get there by having decades of recurring, predictable income that lenders are comfortable underwriting against. That’s not weakness. That’s the exact profile that supports borrowing, the opposite of a cloud brokerage that survives on equity issuance because there’s nothing for a bank to lend against. Banks don’t lend against agents. Agents are moving targets with no long-term contracts to predict income from.
Meanwhile, Real is taking on $550 million of new debt to do this deal. The combined company will spend the next two to three years deleveraging, paying down loans rather than rewarding shareholders. If “debt” is the bad guy in this story, the supposed rescuer just signed up for more of it than the company it was rescuing.
The buyer is taking on more debt than the seller had. That is not a rescue. That is a leveraged acquisition with a marketing department.
Before we get into the math, one quick definition. GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the standardized rulebook every public company has to follow when reporting financial results. “Adjusted EBITDA” is the number companies tell investors at the Instagram party. GAAP is the one they have to tell the government. Same quarter, Real reports +$14.9M in Adjusted EBITDA and a $3.4M loss on a GAAP basis. Both are technically correct. Only one of them is the truth. Keep that in mind for what follows.
Let me walk you through what happens to a dollar after this deal closes. No spreadsheet voodoo. No CFO talk. Just one dollar, and where it actually ends up.
A client signs at the kitchen table. The cheque is written. A dollar of commission heads into Real’s books, where it gets booked as “revenue” and quoted proudly on the next earnings call.
Then it leaves again. Roughly 91 cents of that dollar walks straight back out the door to the agent who actually did the work. Welcome to brokerage, where the company is essentially the FedEx of money, it picks the cheque up, drives it across the table, hands it to the agent, and gets to count the whole trip as “revenue.” Impressive on the income statement. Less impressive when you remember they never owned the package.
So, we’re down to 9 cents. That’s gross profit. That’s the entire bag of chips the company gets to live on.
Out of those 9 cents, the company has to feed everyone who isn’t an agent. The CFO. The marketing department. The technology bills. The lawyers (so many lawyers). After all that, we’re down to maybe 3 cents. But wait. We’re not done.
Real just borrowed $550 million to buy REMAX®. Banks, surprisingly, do not lend $550 million out of friendship. Interest on that loan runs roughly $50 million a year, about 2 cents off every dollar of revenue. Goodbye, 2 cents. The bank thanks you for your service.
Then there’s stock-based compensation, the magical accounting trick where companies pay executives in stock instead of cash and then politely ask everyone to pretend it isn’t a real expense. GAAP says it is. So another 3 cents per dollar quietly vanishes into the executive comp pile.
Then add depreciation, integration costs, more lawyers (told you), and a few “one-time” charges that somehow show up every quarter. Call it another 3 cents.
Add it all up. The actual projection, in plain English, looks like this:
Every dollar that walks into Real’s books walks back out as a 2 to 3 cent loss. The agent got 91 cents. The bank got 2. The execs got 3 in stock. The lawyers got two yachts. The company got an IOU.
The path back to actual profit is real but slow. Year 1: bleed. Year 2: roughly breakeven once $30 million of “synergies” (corporate-speak for layoffs) kick in. Year 3: possibly $60 to $90 million of actual net income, if interest rates cooperate, if agents stay, if the housing market doesn’t sneeze. Three years from now this might look brilliant. Or it might look like the most expensive way ever invented to discover that brokerage is a thin-margin people business that doesn’t transform into a software company just because you wish hard enough.
None of this happened by accident. Leadership on both sides spent ten years getting the basics wrong. Cloud leadership built their pitch on agent count and revenue share. They never gave enough weight to the one thing that actually keeps a brokerage healthy long-term: agent productivity. The producing agent, the one closing fifteen or twenty deals a year and bringing real value to clients and to the company, was treated as a number on a leaderboard instead of a person worth developing. The model rewarded recruiting, not producing. When the market slowed in 2024, the math fell apart, because you cannot run a company on agents closing three deals a year, no matter how many of them you have.
Legacy brand leadership made the opposite mistake. They sat on a strong brand and assumed that was enough. It wasn’t. While the cloud players were busy building the wrong technology, the legacy brands were not building any. They failed to give their operators and their producing agents the tools that would actually make their work easier, the kind of platform that helps a broker-owner run their office, helps a team leader manage leads, and frees up an agent to spend more time selling and less time on paperwork. The brand kept them alive. The lack of technology is what made them targets.
One side built the wrong tech for the wrong customer. The other side competed in building the same wrong tech. Both sides were certain they were right. These deals are the bill for that certainty.
So back to Real and REMAX®. Compass and Anywhere. eXp and NextHome. Strip away the rescue narrative and what’s left?
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Three companies admitting they can’t scale to true profitability on a single model.
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Three companies acknowledging that brand, franchise structure, and local broker-operators are not optional, they are part of the operating system.
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Three companies, combined, taking on over a billion dollars of new debt to buy the parts of the industry their original thesis dismissed.
None of this is a rescue. All of it is a confession. The industry doesn’t need a winner of the cloud-versus-franchise debate. That debate is over. What it needs is leadership willing to say out loud what these transactions are saying with their cheque books.
Agents are the engine. Broker/Owners/Mentors/Team Leaders are the multiplier. Technology is the leverage. Brand is the trust. You need all four. You always did.
For the agent reading this, the takeaway is simple. You are not being rescued. You are not being disrupted. You are being recognized, slowly, expensively, and a decade too late, as the actual asset the entire industry is built on. The companies acquiring each other right now are paying real money to admit what should have been obvious from the start. Pick the brokerage, business operator or team leader that already knew it and is focused on building your business.
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
December 10, 2025
“When An Industry Stops Listening”
A System Built on Silence Will Always Break: What RECO’s Takeover Says About Us!
The news of RECO being placed under a provincial administrator has sent shockwaves through Ontario’s real estate community, though the truth is this moment has been years in the making. Many are calling it a fiasco. I see it as an overdue, a moment of clarity about the state of our profession and the structures meant to govern it. We should not be surprised. And more importantly, we should not be afraid. Change only feels threatening when we’ve ignored the warning signs, and as practitioners, we must be honest with ourselves: we have not always shown up the way a self-regulated profession requires.
RECO lost sight of its dual mandate, and I say this bluntly because it needs to be said. Protecting consumers is the cornerstone of our industry, but protecting the integrity, competence, and advancement of the professionals who serve those consumers is equally essential. That balance is what builds a healthy, trusted, self-regulated profession. Somewhere along the way, RECO stopped balancing anything. Instead of being a partner in raising standards, it evolved into a bureaucratic engine of penalties and fines. Heavy-handed on enforcement. Completely absent when it came to innovation. And worst of all, deeply disconnected from the realities we face every day in the field. They staffed roles with individuals who have never actually practised in this industry, people who do not understand how a real transaction unfolds, how consumers behave, or what challenges REALTORS® navigate in protecting their clients.
That disconnect created a vacuum. Agents became frustrated, not because they opposed accountability, but because they felt unheard and unrepresented. The public grew confused, unsure whether RECO was protecting them or simply policing the industry for revenue. And eventually, the government stepped in not because the system was perfect, but because it failed from the inside. And that failure came at a staggering cost of $15 million in mismanagement, and lost confidence. This wasn’t a theoretical problem. It affected real people, REALTORS® whose livelihoods depend on a stable regulatory environment, and consumers who rely on trust and transparency when making the biggest financial decisions of their lives. That trust has been shaken, and we need to acknowledge that openly.
But we must also be honest with ourselves, because we contributed to this outcome too. Practitioner engagement didn’t just decline, it collapsed. Too many REALTORS® stopped following the very procedures and protocols designed to protect both us and the consumers we serve. Corners were cut, and shortcuts were rebranded as “creativity.” And one by one, fundamentals of good practice were pushed aside. The truth is, many agents only paid attention to RECO when a notice of complaint landed in their inbox, not because they were being targeted, but because they were no longer operating with the level of discipline, documentation, and compliance that our profession requires.
We cannot blame the regulator for everything when our own habits drifted so far from acceptable professional standards. The industry slowly stepped back from the conversations that shape our future. Fewer agents spoke up. Fewer participated. Fewer cared about the health of the profession beyond the next deal. Our collective voice weakened, and in that vacuum, leadership structures drifted away from their core purpose. This moment requires humility, accountability, and the willingness to admit that the problem was not only external, but it was also internal.
But in every disruption lies opportunity. I welcome this change because it forces us to confront a hard but simple truth, the industry needs an overhaul, and the reset must begin with us. This moment uncomfortable as it may feel, is not a punishment. It is a call to progress, accountability, and higher standards.
It also underscores something we don’t talk about enough:, the environment in which a REALTOR® practises matters deeply because it directly shapes the experience and protection consumers receive. As regulations tighten, technology accelerates, and the stakes in real estate rise, the public wants more than a salesperson. They want a professional backed by a strong brand, strong leadership, real training, and a brokerage culture built on accountability. Consumers may not see what happens behind the scenes, but they absolutely feel the difference. It shows up in the quality of advice they receive, the competence displayed in complex situations, the professionalism during negotiations, and the overall value proposition of the REALTOR® they choose to trust. Brokerages that prioritize compliance, invest in real education, embrace technology responsibly, and uphold high ethical standards produce professionals who serve the public with excellence. Brokerages that cut corners create risk and that risk lands on the consumer. And now more than ever, people are paying attention.
This regulatory shake-up is also a reminder that strong leadership at the brokerage level is not just beneficial; it is protective. When RECO falters or hesitates, the brokerage leadership must step in with clarity, direction, and support. When the regulator struggles to define the path forward, real industry leaders must elevate competency from the inside out. A brokerage’s responsibility is not to shield agents from the consequences of poor practice, nor to celebrate mediocrity. Its responsibility is to insist on higher standards and to ensure that the professionals representing its name uphold the trust of consumers.
The reality is that Canadians today want real estate advisors who genuinely care about them who communicate clearly, understand their concerns, act with integrity, and provide informed guidance rooted in both human understanding and professional excellence. They are watching how we behave as a profession, and they are watching how we respond to these changes. This is our opportunity to restore confidence, reset expectations, and elevate the entire industry.
The RECO shake-up is not a crisis for those who embrace truth, accountability, and leadership. It is an inflection point. A moment to rethink how we train, how we practise, how we regulate, and how we serve the public. It is a chance to rebuild this profession not on fear of fines, but on pride in our craft. To recognize that self-regulation is a privilege. And to prove, through our collective actions, that the real estate profession in Ontario deserves the respect, trust, and confidence of the public.
The future will belong to professionals who lead with integrity, communicate with purpose, operate with discipline, and align themselves with organizations committed to excellence. The noise will always be there but the REALTORS® and brokerages who rise above it will define the next chapter of Canadian real estate.
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
August 7, 2025
“Ping Pong Tables Don't Build Culture - Honesty Does”
In today’s real estate world, noisy, distracted, and constantly shifting, there’s one word that gets thrown around a lot: culture. But let’s be clear: culture isn’t about the fancy snacks in the kitchen or a ping pong table in the lounge. It’s not about branded hoodies or motivational posters slapped on the wall. And it’s definitely not a buzzword that should be tossed around.
Real culture runs deeper. It’s what shows up when things fall apart, when the deals dry up, when your confidence tanks, when your pipeline is empty, and your bank account is whispering doubts in the middle of the night. Culture is the invisible safety net you didn’t know you had until you need it.
After 28 years in this business, I’ve seen it all. The high-flying months and the brutal ones. And what I’ve learned is this: when everything around you feels uncertain, culture isn’t what you see. It’s what you feel. It’s the knowing that when you walk into your office, physically or virtually, you’re not just another transaction stat. You’re a human being, with real ambition, real struggles, and real potential. You matter.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth, the one most leaders dodge:
Real culture starts with brutal honesty.
Not the feel-good kind of honesty that pats you on the back and tells you you’re doing “just fine.” I’m talking about the kind that wakes you up. The kind that pulls you aside and says, “This isn’t working, and you know it. Let’s fix it.” That level of truth? That’s love in action. That’s leadership. Because if no one is willing to tell you the truth, then no one is truly invested in your growth. And if we can’t be real with each other, then what are we even building?
Leadership doesn’t live in Instagram reels. It lives in quiet conversations while you are still figuring it out. It lives in the trenches. If you’re feeling disconnected, listen closely, it’s not weakness. It’s your soul asking for direction. For clarity. I see it every day: good agents burning out, not from laziness, but from lack of alignment. You’re chasing trends, reels, hashtags, hoping one of them unlocks the breakthrough. But here’s the truth I’ve come to know:
Ideas aren’t systems. Hustle isn’t strategy.
Confidence isn’t built on motion—it’s built on clarity.
Pick two or three things. Get focused. Build a system that works even when you’re not at 100%. That’s where the real freedom comes from.
If you’ve ever thought, “I’m on my own anyway,” I challenge you to take one brave step: walk into your manager’s office. Or call your broker. Be honest. Ask for help. Not with blame, but with ownership. Say, “I want more. I’m ready to grow. I’m not okay with just getting by.”
There’s no shame in getting it wrong. I get it wrong every day. But I pivot. I reflect. I ask better questions. And I keep moving. So here’s my message to you, the one I would’ve wanted someone to tell me when I started:
Stop looking for magic.
Start looking for meaning.
Get honest with yourself, your clients, your goals. And when it gets tough and it will, don’t retreat. Don’t isolate. Reach out.
Because if you’re still here, still showing up through the chaos that tells me everything I need to know about you. And I want you to know: you’re not alone. Not in this brokerage, not in this journey, not in this mission to build something that lasts.
Let’s figure it out—together.
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
July 21, 2025
“The Pay To Play Trap”
After nearly three decades in this business, I’ve witnessed the full evolution of real estate. From MLS books and pagers to Motorola army-grade cell phones, from fax machines to Zoom and now the rise of AI. I’ve seen it all. And over the past ten years, I’ve watched one prop-tech startup after another try to “disrupt” the industry by offering shiny tools, commission gimmicks, and platforms designed to replace the professional agent with algorithms.
But let’s be honest: these platforms don’t disrupt — they distract.
What they’re really doing is pushing aside the very core of this business, human intelligence, emotional connection, and professional judgment in favor of automation and short-term optics. And to sell their story, many of them manipulate data to create a narrative that suits their funding pitch, not the consumer’s best interest.
One recent platform claimed that “A good percentage of sellers said they wouldn’t use the same agent again.” But one quick Google search shows that over 80% of sellers they would definitely or probably use the same agent again.
WOW Why such a difference?
The likely answer: biased samples, vague survey questions, cherry-picked geographies and a complete lack of transparency. It’s not research. It’s marketing disguised as insight.
Or how about the stat that “experience and track record matter most”? Sure, experience matters. But data shows consumers value in the following order; Reputation, Trust and Experience. So while experience is a factor, it’s not the most important one. Relationships, trust, and authenticity come first. Because at the end of the day, people hire people, not resumés.
Let me be clear: I’m not anti-technology. Quite the opposite. I embrace digital marketing, AI chat tools, CRM systems, transaction management platforms, all of it. Tech helps agents work smarter and serve clients better. But what it can’t do is replace judgment, empathy, or negotiation.
No algorithm can guide a grieving widow through downsizing. No app can understand why a couple can’t let go of the home they raised their kids in or negotiate a deal that saves a marriage. Real estate is human, messy, emotional, and layered.
What concerns me most is this growing trend of agents being chosen for their wallet, not their skill. We’re seeing platforms that reward agents not for their knowledge or service, but for how much they’re willing to spend on paid rankings, feature placements, or referral cuts. The more you pay, the more you “show up” in front of consumers.
But when agents are chosen based on giveaways, flat-fee marketing, or commission cuts, it creates dangerous consequence; It elevates flash over substance. Consumers are drawn in by noise, not strategy. And when the market slows down, like it is now, these models collapse. We’ve seen it happen before, and we’ll see it again. I won’t name names, but you know the ones.
So yes, let’s keep using technology, it helps us work smarter and serve our clients better. But let’s stop fooling ourselves: clicks don’t replace care, and flashy stats don’t replace real skill and service. If we want to truly improve this industry, we need to focus on what’s always made the biggest difference; people who genuinely care.
Because no app, platform, or price tag will ever replace that.
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
July 9, 2025
“Acceptance Is the New Strategy”
I’ll admit it, I'm addicted. I scroll through market commentary like a late night snack run, knowing full well that half of it is junk food. Everyone’s suddenly a real estate expert. Some have never closed a deal, never sat across from a nervous buyer, or had a seller ask the million-dollar question: “Is now the right time?” But here we are, opinion overload in a market that demands more clarity than ever.
Let’s cut through it. What we’re seeing isn’t a stalled market, but a slow-motion market subject to area, pricing and type of property. The recovery especially for sellers has no real momentum. Sellers are still dreaming of 2022 prices like it was just yesterday. Spoiler alert, it’s not coming back. Not in that form. We’re in a steady-pace market, which sounds great for real motivated consumers and focused Realtors®. but in practice kills urgency for buyers & sellers and create fears among any media watchers Realtors®.
Now, let’s talk about the elephant in the room “Inventory”. Yes, it’s up over 25%. But is it really? Or are we just counting products that can’t move, overpriced, overleveraged, or simply not saleable? Many listings are the residue of bad timing (peak buys), speculative condo units that never had an end user in mind, and sellers still stuck in fantasyland. So, is it inventory or just phantom listing on MLS.
And interest rates, yes, it does matter. But this isn’t about the Bank of Canada playing with another 0.25% cut. The damage isn’t in the rate; it’s in the psyche. Three years of ultra-cheap money during the pandemic distorted buyer expectations. People aren’t frozen because they can’t buy, they're frozen because they’re unsure of what they’re really buying into. Until they regain confidence in future value, they’ll keep asking questions and the move as slow as they can. More buyers in urban cores and they are holding their ground, thanks to jobs, transit, and accessibility. But the suburbs? They need to get to their real pricing and not the speculative hype that they didn’t earn. That rubber band is snapping back hard which hurts in short run but ultimately, they will have a better growth due to affordability in long run.
So what now?
For Sellers:
Stop chasing 2022. That ship has sailed. Price for today's reality, not yesterday’s fantasy. If your home isn’t selling, it’s not the market, it’s your positioning.
For Buyers:
This isn’t a crash, it’s a slow pace. If you're waiting for prices to fall off a cliff, you might miss the moment. Focus on long-term value, not market noise. Confidence returns before the headlines say so.
For Realtors®:
This isn’t the time for gimmicks. It’s time for clear thinking, steady leadership, and hyper-local knowledge. The agents and teams who truly understand what today’s buyer feels, not just what they say, will be the ones who bridge the gap and lead the next chapter. Everyone else? They’ll still be blaming the interest rate while watching listings grow stale.
Let’s stay sharp!
Steve Tabrizi
Chief Operating Officer - Broker/Owner
REMAX Hallmark® Group of Companies
and a lifelong advocate for real estate
done right — with integrity, intelligence, and heart.
